James Holmes case: See first of fifty newly released, often heavily redacted documents

This morning, the court released more than fifty documents in the James Holmes case that had previously been kept from public view -- dating all the way back to Holmes's application for a public defender on July 20, the day prosecutors say Holmes shot and killed twelve people and injured 58 at a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora. The documents are heavily redacted, but they do provide another (tiny) glimpse into the case.

See four of the documents below. We'll post more on The Latest Word throughout the day.

The Aurora Century 16.

The documents below relate to Holmes's lawyers' request that prosecutors be sanctioned for "publicly making factual assertions about Mr. Holmes in reckless disregard for the truth." They're referring to statements made by prosecutor Karen Pearson in court on August 23, in which she said Holmes had been banned from the University of Colorado Denver campus in June after making threats. A university spokeswoman subsequently told the media -- including Westword -- that Holmes wasn't banned. Rather, he was restricted from accessing certain parts of campus because he was in the process of withdrawing from the school's neuroscience program.

Judge William Sylvester denied Holmes's lawyers' request to sanction prosecutors. See the documents below for their original request and the judge's order. (Prosecutors filed their response to the sanctions request under seal -- which means it's still off limits to the public.) Also see below the judge's order denying the defense's attempt to stop prosecutors from subpoenaing Holmes's educational records -- which is what they were arguing about in court when Pearson mentioned that Holmes had been banned from campus.

And for a sampling of the heavy redaction we mentioned, check out the document below entitled "Return of Service on Subpoena to Produce SDT 2," which is essentially series of black rectangles covering every paragraph.